If any of you have been following the news about the high cost of oil, you have probably heard that everyone is pointing at speculation on oils futures as one of the leading culprits. Basically there are investors that are betting that oil is going to cost more in the future and by doing so, the price of oil goes up. While this is annoying, I generally assumed that is just the way the stock market works.

But then on Monday, Sierra's Dad told me that several years ago, when gas was like 70% cheaper, there were limits on how much US investors could play the oil futures game. After doing a few google searches, I discovered that in 2000, the Commodity Futures Modernization Act allowed US investors to electronically speculate in unregulated markets (sometimes called the "Enron loophole" or the "London loophole"). By complete coincidence, gas prices went from $1.50/gallon to $4.00/gallon in 8 years.

I really am bothered that I had to dig for to find articles about this. I am on CNN.com everyday and I never saw this article. All the other google links are little blogs like mine. I wonder if the people running the main stream media are the big investors in oil speculation.

This might be a time to write you congressman and ask him to cut the speculators nuts off and reel them back in.